In the 1960's, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (APRA) of the United States Department of Defense developed and deployed a network of interconnected computers primarily designed to allow research organizations and universities to more easily exchange information. Called the ARPANET, this network of computers was used primarily by the scientific and academic community for research oriented tasks and information exchange. In the 1980's, the ARPANET was replaced by the NSFNET, which is commonly referred to today as the Internet.
Whereas the Internet was certainly useful in scientific and academic circles, it suffered a serious problem, namely, its interface was difficult to use. In 1989, an English computer scientist named Timothy Berners-Lee introduced the World Wide Web ("WWW"). The WWW was originally designed to facilitate communications over the Internet between physicists working for the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, but the WWW's ease of use caught on quickly with the both the scientific and non-academic communities. This surge in popularity spurned the development of numerous WWW browsers that enable users to "surf" the WWW.
Recently, publishers and other information providers have been moving to develop new forms of distribution, similar to traditional "snail mail" subscription services, but on the WWW. Newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal have developed internet sites that offer an alternative to the regular print subscriptions at a significantly reduced cost. Similarly, other periodicals and publications have developed websites for paid subscription subscribers too.
Today, most pay-for-use subscription sites on the WWW use userid/password pairs that allow a user to logon to a service and review the content in a publication. Although this system works, there are disadvantages. First, during peak hours, the access points (e.g., gateway servers) to the subscription services are often clogged, either by other users trying to logon to the site or general Internet traffic. Second, the userid/password pair gives varying degrees of access to the content of the websites, but access is typically based upon time and levels of content (e.g., all articles or only some sections/services). Third, paying subscribers often share their userid/password pair with other non-paying users. Fourth, because the userid/password pair has a persistent quality (that is, it tends to remain the same over time) unauthorized use (e.g., hacking, snooping, etc.) is common.
One alternative to the userid/password pair described above is to give access to a user based on the user's computers IP address. Such an alternative is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,684,951, invented by Goldman, et al. However, in some computer networks, for example computers connected to a Microsoft's NT DHCP (dynamic host configuration protocol) server, are not given permanent IP addresses. Rather, their IP address varies from session to session. If an IP address is not assigned via DHCP, or a similar dynamic scheme, then it is typically permanently assigned to a particular computer, since multiple computers are generally not allowed to have the same IP address on the same network.
Beyond the problems associated with the known userid/password pairs, subscribers of a particular service may not wish to purchase a "bundle" of content for a fixed or flat fee. Subscribers may wish to pay for content on a limited use basis and may further desire to pay only for the information they can actually use or specifically request. In light of the foregoing discussion, there is a need for a different method and apparatus for user authentication to an electronic service.